Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

The above was the first line in instructions for life that my friend Kathy forwarded to me in an email. I think I've achieved some small things in life, but I don't think I put much risk into them. The bad thing with me is that I rarely attempt things that based on the limited knowledge I have about it would be undoable or end in rejection. And then I realized that if I had truly known how hard it was to get into the graduate program in berkeley stats, I probably would not have even attempted. The lucky thing for me was that I was naive when I applied. But that is NOT risk! Naiveness and ignorance about the risk involved was what made me apply. My previously wrong understanding of it was that it would be easy to get into graduate school, especially in an area like statistics that no one could possibly take an interest enough to spend an additional five years of their lives to study. Little did I know... Now I just marvel how incredibly lucky I am to even be here.

So, what else am I not risking for better things in life? I consider myself pretty happy nowadays, what else could I possibly need that would require great risks? I guess I'm afraid to even answer that question. I don't react well to big changes. I know I get used to involuntary changes, but changes of my own accord?? Oh nooo!! So...will everything in life just fall into my lap just fine and dandy or will I have to start making myself very uncomfortable with huge risks? Oh, I'm so not brave...